This weekend I flew into and out of the Cariboo via the picturesque Williams Lake Airport (that’s YWL to all you IATA junkies). Never have I experienced a more thorough, dare I say fascist, customs investigation. They have little in the way of X-ray equipment up there, so the luggage search was all manual. After a surgical-gloved woman rifled through my intimates, she turned to the water bottle I was carrying. She examined it, and the following exchange ensued:
HER: Have you opened this?
ME: Yes.
HER: I need you to demonstrate that this can cause no harm to the aircraft.
ME: Uh…so, you want me to drink some?
HER: Yes.
I took a swig, and spat it all over her, dramatically clutching my throat.
Just kidding, I drank some and moved along. I guess the bottle could be filled with nitroglycerin (it looked clear on the A-Team, right?) or gasoline. I hadn’t imagined that Williams Lake was a hotbed of terrorism, but you never know.
Bonus link: While googling for “williams lake” terrorism, I found this interesting page. It’s a bunch of incident reports from the Provincial Emergency Program. It includes descriptions like “SAR member responded to search the Kitwancool area near New Hazleton for a female mushroom picker. Was located alive, cold and slightly injured.”
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I’ve always noticed flying in and out of small towns that the inspections are much more thorough. The reasoning is always that since you’re flying into Vancouver, they have to ensure you’re not carrying anything restricted, hazardous, dangerous or otherwise. (Though one woman in Smithers once told me she looked through a man’s bag and found some animal head. It had to stay behind.)
Anyway, while I believe the rules are a lot stricter in the wake of 9/11, I was reminded of a story from a couple of years ago (Feb. 2001) about a woman who took some corrosive liquid on board with her that ended up spilling. It melted a woman’s coat and burnt several passengers and flight attendants as well as upholstery and carpet. One woman had to be treated for third-degree burns.
So, I guess, better safe than sorry.
After September 11th, many media reported that small airports were at the greatest risk for terrorism and hijacking. The Nanaimo paper ran a report on how none of the Canadian safety regulations implemented immediately after September 11th applied to small airports. It sounds like security has since been tightened.
Flying from Williams lake it wasn’t customs…it was security.
A colleague and I just returned to Vancouver from Saskatoon, and we too were asked to drink our Tim Hortons coffee. They also looked through my small carry-on, and inspected my laptop, cell phone, and digital camera.
They were also super-friendly, and the airport wasn’t busy, so I didn’t mind at all.